A Grammy winning singer was speaking with us recently and she mentioned Dottie West. We were surprised that her name was new to some and put it down to, "Oh, they must not know much about country & western music."
But that actually wasn't the problem.
We saw the problem with NETFLIX's THE HALL last week.
Four dead people were inducted into NETFLIX's comedy "Hall" (which is also physical hall in the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, NY). They were inducted by four living comedians. It was the height of segregation as the token female (Joan Rivers) was inducted by the token female (Chelsea Handler) and the token African-American man (Richard Pryor) was inducted by the token African-American man (Dave Chappelle). Continuing the pattern, a White nebbish (George Carlin) was inducted by a White nebbish (Jon Stewart) and an Anglo White who dabbled in gay portrayals (Robin Williams) was inducted by the same (John Mulaney).
Was Joan not worthy of inclusion?
We ask because the film clips of the men stressed their comedy. Joan's little segment was about a woman in a man's world. Was Joan a woman in a man's world? Probably for about sixty seconds before comedy became her world, she made it that and it's a damn shame that we weren't allowed to enjoy her comedy -- they didn't even include a clip from her NETFLIX special.
The segregation indicated that only women could appreciate Joan and only African-American men could appreciate Richard.
Maybe next time grasp that message is not only out of date, racist and sexist, but it was never accurate to begin with.
Women get little attention when history is written. And this feature is about fixing that. We (Ava and C.I.) are kicking it off but anyone with THIRD is welcome to continue it.
Since Dottie West was the mystery for some in our conversation last week, we decided to go with country music.
If a woman had 20 top 40 country hits -- including one that went all the way to number one -- it would be safe to assume that at least country fans would be familiar with her. Are you?
The man's The Outlaw Willie Nelson. The woman is his contemporary in Outlaw Country music, Sammi Smith. Sandra Brennan (SPOTIFY) notes, "In the tradition of and , singer/songwriter Sammi Smith was considered a country music outlaw, unafraid to sing songs that reflected the sometimes gritty realities of modern life."
The Oklahoma native had a dream of singing and writing country songs. The divorced mother of four was encouraged to move to Nashville by songwriter Gene Sullivan ("When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again"). And then? ENCYCLOPEDIA.COM notes:
In 1967 Smith gave Johnny Cash's bass player, Marshall Grant, a performance tape, and he helped her sign with Columbia Records. She moved to Nashville the same year following a divorce, and recorded "So Long Charlie Brown, Don't Look for Me Around" in 1968 and "Brownsville Lumberyard" in 1970. Although both songs became minor hits, Columbia dropped her contract three years later. She then signed with Mega, an independent label, and reached the top 30 with "He's Everywhere." It was during this time that she recorded a number of demos written by a Columbia studios janitor named Kris Kristofferson. Smith and Mega recorded and released Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It through the Night," which quickly rose to number one on the country music chart.
It stayed at number one for three weeks.
It made it to number 8 on the top forty pop charts. Sammi won a Grammy for her performance and she won a COUNTRY MUSIC AWARD. It was also the title track of her debut album in 1970.
Then as now, Sammi Smith is all but entirely identified with her indelible countrypolitan version of the Kristofferson title track. But here’s what still amounts to Breaking News: The rest of her debut is every bit as great. Smith’s husky alto and her intimate, almost spoken phrasing, framed by unfussy country-soul rhythms and doom-saying strings, marks her throughout as among the most underrated vocalists of her time. On the album’s first single, “He’s Everywhere” (the original title track before “Help Me…” took off and the album was renamed), Smith, abandoned by her lover, discovers she’s worse than alone; she’s haunted. Her reading of another of Kristofferson song, 1970’s ubiquitous “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” is notably bleary-eyed and weary-hearted, and her versions of three fantastic Jeanette Tooley songs — “Saunders Ferry Lane,” “When Michael Calls,” and “This Room for Rent” — plumb scary depths of isolation: “She’s heard no word from God,” Smith sings of the teary, prayerful woman in the album’s final word. “Nothing seems to matter anymore.”
Sammi Smith also wrote songs including Conway Twitty's "Sand Covered Angels" (from Twitty's 15 YEARS AGO album) and she co-wrote the title track to Waylon Jennings; CEDARTOWN, GEORGiA album.
Her son, actor and singer-songwriter Waylon Paynem told SOUND AND SOUL:
I learned everything I know about singing from Sammi Smith. Everything. EVERYTHING. She was my mother. In my opinion, she is one of, if not the greatest country music singers of her age. It’s just the way it is. You can put her up against anybody and you get more everything out of a Sammi Smith record. Bobbie Gentry’s the same way. But my mama, I learned everything I know from her. If you hear it come out of my mouth, the chances are, I probably saw her or heard her do something similar and it just became my own thing.